The Taoiseach and the British Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair, who are in Helsinki at the EU summit, have both welcomed the statement issued yesterday by the International Commission on Decommissioning. Mr Ahern said the statement was a "positive report" and "clear evidence" that the decommissioning process was proceeding in the manner planned under the Mitchell review of the Belfast Agreement.
He said the "key line in the statement" from Gen John de Chastelain was that decommissioning would occur. This was the main development since the previous statement issued by the General last July when such a commitment could not have been given.
Mr Ahern said he did not read anything significant into the section of the statement which indicated that the commission would be prepared to say that decommissioning should start within a specified period.
He denied that this was a form of qualification over the commitment by the paramilitary organisations to decommissioning.
"That is about protecting the review process. No more should be read into that," the Taoiseach said.
The meeting of the Ulster Unionist Council in February to review the party's participation in the Northern Executive pending movement on decommissioning had, Mr Ahern said, added "pressure of time that wasn't there previously". For that reason it was necessary to keep the the peace process "on the top of the agenda".
Mr Blair told reporters he was "very pleased" with the report. He said it was another step on the way forward. He acknowledged there was a lot to do to ensure that the peace process took root.
The Taoiseach said he had "no doubt but that the end was in sight" in the North. He welcomed the decision to close the Castlereagh holding centre, but added that there were "other Castlereaghs, not as notorious and not as hated and feared by nationalists, but there are others".
This type of security infrastructure had reached its "sell by date", he said.
Mr Ahern said the Castlereagh closure had been brought forward from the British government's normalisation paper, which is expected to set out how security in the North will be scaled down in light of the changed political and paramilitary environment.
He reiterated his wish to see the early publication of the normalisation paper.
Responding to the controversy over the recent Budget and the prospects for the partnership negotiations, Mr Ahern accepted there were issues surrounding low pay and on the social welfare side which had to be dealt with.
He said the Government was committed to the agenda outlined in the NESC strategy document. A successor to Partnership 2000 was "very much" in the interests of all sides, but he said that in order to reach agreement on a new deal, it would be necessary to "get a balance" on the allocation of resources.